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16 April 2014

Heroism and other loaded words you should be careful of

John Locke, the philosopher of happinesswhose followers made the modern world,in part by demystifyingthe potentially nasty concept of noble heroism.

Reading
further in Bertrand Russell’s History of Western Philosophy (see
previous post for links) I came upon another quotation which seems to me to
cast an informative light on events in Russia today.

Russell is discussing
Immanuel Kant’s philosophy, which was taken up by idealists and transformed
into something nasty—and eventually Nazi—and contrasting it with John Locke’s humdrum
but more down-to-earth approach to happiness, which culminated in British utilitarianism
and the United States Constitution.

This is
what Russell says about the impulse to noble heroism:

“The sort
of ethic that is called ‘noble’ is less associated with attempts to improve the
world than is the more mundane view that we should seek to make men happier.
This is not surprising. Contempt for happiness is easier when the happiness is
other people’s than when it is our own. Usually the substitute for happiness is
some form of heroism. This affords unconscious outlets for the impulse to power,
and abundant excuses for cruelty.”

The
language point is that non-native speakers of English should be very careful
about how they use loaded words like “heroism”. They might seem impressive in a
language whose speakers worship power, but can sound not very polite in another
culture where suspicion of power and cynicism about those who exercise it is
predominant. This is how it has been in the whole English-speaking world for
centuries, especially the three that separate us from the time of John Locke.

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About Me

I am a writer, journalist, broadcaster and editor, living in Russia. I have written four books and I now publish this blog, which aims to help Russians master the difficult art of writing fluently in English. You can contact me at: language.etiquette@gmail.com
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